


where we left off

by pomegrenadier



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Force Unleashed - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Identity Issues, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-16 10:10:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14809302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pomegrenadier/pseuds/pomegrenadier
Summary: You are not Starkiller. But you have his face, and his power, and some of his memories—and you don’t know how to feel about that. About the Rahm Kota he knew and the one storming out of the cockpit in disgust.





	where we left off

**Author's Note:**

> Incredibly self-indulgent meta-disguised-as-fic, set right after Cato Nemoidia in TFU2. For the record, I like Kota, but I think the way he was written at the very end of TFU and in TFU2 was inconsistent with the kind of character and relationships the story seemed to be going for. (Inasmuch as it went for anything beyond vague broad gestures. Because these games were rather thin on plot and character development. Sigh.)
> 
> So here’s what those writing choices seem to imply about him, and his relationships to the two protagonists, and … yeah okay so basically this is just an excuse for angsty introspection with a dash of salt. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> [ETA 7/1/18: Well I definitely misremembered Kota's exact line. Oops. Fixed it.]

You are not Starkiller. But you have his face, and his power, and some of his memories—and you don't know how to feel about that. About the Rahm Kota he knew and the one storming out of the cockpit in disgust.

What changed, for Kota, between Nar Shaddaa and Corellia? What pulled him out of the drinking and the despair? _I came to_ , he said, or you think he said, and now he's talking about your power and what you could do for the Alliance, and you wonder—was that it all along?

Starkiller's power. A symbol of hope, a weapon. A life in darkness, a death in light; symmetry, balance, harmony. A Jedi's life is sacrifice. There is no death. Only the Force. And Starkiller was so very strong in the Force.

So are you, because you're his _replacement_.

Is that why Kota is more interested in what you can do than in anything else? You're tired, you're _tired_ , you've existed for just a few months and you're not Starkiller and you don't know Rahm Kota but you do know how to be a weapon.

Rahm Kota was ... the emotions tangled in the memory are _respect, affection, exasperation_. A mentor, a father, a friend. You wanted—you still want that. The flashes of trust and happiness Starkiller felt, with these people you don't know. You _don't_ know them. Maybe that gives you perspective, maybe that means you can see things he couldn't, or didn't want to.

_If you strike him down in anger, you'll be right back where you began._

Kota wanted a Jedi. Starkiller wanted to live, but he wanted to do the right thing more. He wanted to make Kota proud.

You wonder if the part of you that sneers at Starkiller's choice is Vader's cruelty or your own. You wonder if the part of you that wants to take your progenitor by the shoulders and _scream_ at him for throwing his life away is just cowardice.

Kota wants to go on the offensive, with you as the unstoppable vanguard. You want to sleep for a week, taste real food in real time. See Juno again—no. _Meet_ Juno. Or maybe that's a terrible idea and you should just run, disappear, build a life completely outside Starkiller's shadow.

But he was happy, when he was around her. Sometimes. She wasn't magic. She didn't save him or fix him. She was just kind. She had an amazing deadpan and her eyes lit up when she talked about flying and she _cared_ , she let herself care, and he'd—Starkiller had been taught his entire life that it was a weakness but she did it anyway and wasn't afraid.

Those memories hurt more than any others. You think of them and you _want_ ; you want someone to trust you that much, love you that much, hold you that tightly.

That it's her face you think of when you imagine what being loved would be like ... You try not to. You don't know her. She'll either see you as the same person who died on the Death Star, or as an insult to her memory of him. You're not sure which option is worse, for either of you. And it's selfish, it will never end well, but you still want to find her. Confirm that she didn't see a symbol or a weapon or a Jedi. That there was one good, true thing in the ugly little life of Galen Marek.

You wish he'd lived. That's compassion, apparently. Another weakness, but ... he _died_ , alone and afraid and in pain, killed by the masters he'd only barely begun to escape, and—and it wasn't _fair_. It wasn't fair.

Why should you exist at all when all you are is _him_ , stripped of everything but what Vader found useful? But you're not him, you will never be him, she doesn't know you and you don't know her and she's nothing but a memory to you.

You're nothing. You're a puppet.

Kota doesn't care where it comes from or what you are or what that means—it doesn't matter; original or replacement, he wants what you can do, what you can destroy. Slaughter stormtroopers by the score, crush tanks and TIE fighters to scrap metal, rip Star Destroyers out of the sky. Starkiller was so proud of that. So pleased to have made Kota proud.

You think you could learn to hate Kota.

_If you strike him down in anger, you'll be right back where you began._

Maybe. But at least Starkiller would be alive.

**o.O.o**

_end_


End file.
